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A map showing the Maida Vale ward of Paddington Metropolitan Borough as it appeared in 1916.

The Maida Vale area is regarded as being bounded by Maida Avenue and the Regent's Canal to the south, Maida Vale Road to the north east, Kilburn Park Road to the north west, and Shirland Road and Blomfield Road to the south west: an area of around 1 square kilometre (0.4 square miles). It makes up most of the W9 postal district. The southern part of Maida Vale at the junction of Paddington Basin with Regent's Canal, with many houseboats, is known as Little Venice. The area to the south-west of Maida Vale, at the western end of Elgin Avenue, was historically known as "Maida Hill", and was a recognised postal district bounded by the Avenues on the west, the Regent's Canal to the south, Maida Vale to the east and Kilburn Lane to the north. Parts of Maida Vale were also included within this.[5] The name of "Maida Hill" had since fallen out of use, although it has been resurrected since the mid-2000s, through the 414 bus route (which terminates on Shirland Road and gives its destination as Maida Hill)[6] and a new street market on the Piazza at the junction of Elgin Avenue and Harrow Road.[7]

Maida Vale is home to some of BBC network radio's recording and broadcast studios. The building on Delaware Road is one of the BBC's earliest premises, pre-dating Broadcasting House, and was the centre of the BBC radio news service during World War II. The building houses a total of seven music and radio drama studios, and most famously was home to John Peel's BBC Radio 1Peel Sessions and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Maida Avenue, Warwick Crescent and Blomfield Road, the streets in the south of Maida Vale overlooking Browning's Pool including the section of Randolph Avenue south of Clifton Gardens,[11] are known as Little Venice. According to one story, the poet Robert Browning, who lived in the area from 1862 to 1887, coined the name.[12] However, this was disputed by Lord Kinross in 1966[13] and by London Canals.[14] Both assert that Lord Byron (1788–1824) humorously coined the name, which now applies more loosely to a longer reach of the canal system. Browning's Pool is named after the poet, and is the junction of Regent's Canal and the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal.

^Minutes of Paddington Borough Council meeting of 5 October 1909 (page 646 for 1909), "Notices for Erection of New Buildings [in 1910]" includes No. 2,135: "A new block of flats.. on the west side of Portsdown Road [renamed Randolph Avenue in 1939] to be the third building from Carlton Vale and on the site between No. 223 Portsdown Road and Carlton Mansions."